tammylc

I've doubled and otherwise messed around with the proportions of Schott's ganache recipes with no ill effects. The only thing I might suggest being careful with are his pate de fruit recipes, since his cooking instructions are based solely on time and not temperatures, and so if you're working with a larger volume you probably wouldn't get up to the appropriate temperature in the time he suggests.

I feel your pain. As is traditional, I started up a "reporting" thread separate from this planning thread for us all to post our comments on the proceedings. It's here.

Given that we're at 28 pages on the other thread, I thought I'd go ahead and start the report out thread. I think we're all still recovering. The Blackbird dinner was great. Especially the lamb - I'd have to call it unctuous. Company was lovely, as always. The Violet Hour was amazing. But judging from how my stomach feels this morning, I'm not sure I should be praising Toby or cursing him! Seriously... excellent cocktails in an excellent venue. Truly a great start to the weekend.

Would I be able to squeeze in, as well? I have CTA directions if you're already full, but I swear I don't take up too much room! ← I was including you in the plan as well. Just meet in the lobby at 1! I'm hitting the road now. If anyone needs to get in touch with me, my cell phone number is listed on my website (link below). See you all at Blackbird tonight!

Kris is going to be *so* excited that you've volunteered her to make tempura. I believe her previous words were "never again." Although the stuffed deep fried squash blossoms were totally awesome. I haven't decided what to make for my amuse yet, so perhaps we can deep fry for that... Hmm. I'm waiting for inspiration to strike on the ethnic market tour.

If not, you could make arrangements for one of the the Farmer's Market shoppers to pick some up - that might be better in any case, in terms of getting fresh and local. I'm pondering my course as well in the context of going on the ethnic market tour. LAZ - can you tell us what ethnic stops you have planned so I'll have some idea if I should have the Farmer's Marketers pick up anything? Thanks!

So from that small number, if I'm picking up Kerry at the hotel, I can pick up anyone else who wants to meet there and take us all out to Marmish's house. Assuming Kerry's train gets in on time, we could even start a little earlier than previously planned. And since I can drive people back to the hotel as well, we have more flexibility on the tail end. Dinner doesn't start until 7:30.

Heartland Gathering Feast Update I tried to organize the planned food a little bit to get a sense of where we're sitting in terms of a course progression. Last year we ended up with a lot of main dish items but no sides. We look to be better on that front this year! And for people who haven't fully decided on what they're making yet, you have some sense of where other people are sitting. I also made some notes about cooking methods so we can ensure we're not going to run into traffic jam around different pieces of equipment. If I've misrepresented you, please let me know! Bread Tino27 - 3 loaves of honey whole wheat bread, 3 loaves of Red and Black bread, 3 loaves of olive rosemary bread, 2 loaves of sweet potato bread Pre-Dinner Noshing - nyokie6 & LAZ - cheese HOLLY_L - chicken liver pate CaliPoutine - Fig jam White Lotus & Dance Pacific - Northwest treats White Lotus - Tea Dinner Apps: tammylc - Amuse (unknown) Alex - Soup (cool) (blender) LAZ - Shrimp DeJonghe (oven) Mains: CaliPoutine - Composed Salad - includes fish (grill?) Ronnie Suburban - BBQ (smoker) NancyH/Bob/Edsel - Meat (Chicken and waffles?) (grill?, waffle maker) Sides: Marmish - Salad or Side (unknown) Lucky Girl - Beets 3 Ways (unknown) Karen M - Ratatouille (premade, oven) santo_grace - Corn/Bacon/Cream pasta (stovetop) Dessert Kerry Beal (unknown) CaliPoutine (oven?) nsxtasy (premade)

I have talked to Kerry a little bit about potentially picking her and Randi up in order to facilitate getting out to the workshop on time. If there's time, the easiest thing to do would be for them to get to Chicago, take a taxi to the hotel to drop things off, and for me to pick them up there and drive out to the chocolate workshop. I can fit 4 in my car (5 if they're small and friendly - it's tight for three in the back seat), so I could potentially bring others from the hotel too. If there's anyone else at the workshop with a car, that could give us more flexibility on the back end. Kerry - can you post an updated list of who's planning to be at the workshop?

Randi, remember that the plan is to serve everything family style. So you'll need one platter per table - assuming we're around 50 people, that will likely be 5 or 6 platters, depending on how many people we can fit at a table. We'll see what the church has, and improvise from Costco if necessary. ← They routinely serve large-scale breakfasts and other meals at the church, so an adequate supply serving platters should not be an issue. There is seating for about 100, which is much closer to the number of attendees I thought we'd have when we started planning this. Tables are rectangular and will seat 8-10 but as long as we have the room, let's figure around 8 people per table. =R= ← Ronnie, what about baking dishes? Casseroles, 9x13 pans, pie dishes? Thanks.

Randi, remember that the plan is to serve everything family style. So you'll need one platter per table - assuming we're around 50 people, that will likely be 5 or 6 platters, depending on how many people we can fit at a table. We'll see what the church has, and improvise from Costco if necessary.

Unless you're looking for something more specific than what you've described, I'm really surprised you're having trouble. Here are just a few that fit the bill you're describing, and if you look around on those sites you'll find more to choose from. http://www.masonbox.com/browse.cfm?line=99 http://www.shopmodpac.com/Product/Boxes/Tw...lar_covers.html http://www.glerup.com/cart/detail.cfm?id=1...temNumber=M1846 http://www.nashvillewraps.com/ShowSku.ww?Class=048&Type=744

It looks like all of our cooks except for Marmish are planning to attend the dinner at Lao Sze Chuan on Friday. I can talk to Marmish during the chocolate workshop, but for the rest of you, can we plan to either a) sit at the same table or b) gather for a short meeting after dinner to coordinate plans and budgets. As Ronnie noted above, the attendance numbers are down from what was originally proposed, so we will be spreading the church rental across fewer attendees, which cuts down on the money available for food. We should still have plenty, but will need to be a little more thoughtful and potentially frugal about our choices.

Can one or two of the locals plan to bring the contents of their spice cabinents, so we're not buying jars of things just for a couple of tsp? Plus salt, pepper, etc - the basic staples that we all rely on, but that won't be in a rental kitchen. Dessert bakers - think about this in the context of baking powder/soda etc too - maybe if you can post about basics that you'll need, we can find someone to bring them. Thanks!

I think it was Mark Rose that used that form for PDF, so it should work. I'd forgotten about that. ← Okay, i'll look for that. So does this mean that regular grocery store pectin *won't* work? ← Yup, the grocery store stuff won't work. See post #44. A couple of posts later it seems that I am agreeing with grocery store pectin - but I'm just agreeing that it was grocery store pectin, not that it was useful. ← Ah, I see. Bummer. That series of posts is very confusing. I guess I'll just cross my fingers that one of the natural food stores will come through for me with some apple pectin, then. Otherwise, I guess I'll just puree up these super ripe peaches sitting on my counter and freeze them for later...

I think it was Mark Rose that used that form for PDF, so it should work. I'd forgotten about that. ← Okay, i'll look for that. So does this mean that regular grocery store pectin *won't* work?

Tammy, Andrew's g-pectin isn't really designed to do the sort of pdf you're aiming for. It's a special blend he created to make pdf to be paired with chocolate and then enrobed. Hence its softness. You want to look for "apple pectin." Most of the pectin in the canning section at the markets won't work well for pdf. And stay away from citrus pectin. Try this link to L'Epicerie for small quantities of the right stuff: http://www.lepicerie.com/customer/product....02&cat=0&page=1 They also have glucose and citric acid (we tend to use fresh lemon juice instead). You can probably substitute corn syrup for the glucose if you want. Good luck and keep us posted. Cheers, Steve ← I figured the g-pectin wasn't quite right, but it's what I had, so I thought it was worth trying. Unfortunately, I don't have time to order anything special. Kerry says upthread that canning section pectin should work, although I've been assuming that I should avoid the "no added sugar needed" varieties and look for the real thing. Unfortunately, today all I could find was liquid pectin and the no sugar kind - I'll go to another store tomorrow and see if I have better luck. ← If you can wait until Friday I'll bring you some apple pectin. ← Unfortunately, I need them for a fundraising dinner I'm providing chocolates for on Sunday night of the eGullet weekend, so I really need to get them done before I leave Thursday morning. When I googled apple pectin, I got a lot of links for it as a nutritional supplement. I wonder if I'll be able to find some in the supplements section of my local natural food store, and if so, if it will be in the right format for it to work in PdF? Any guesses?

Thanks, John. That helps.

Tammy, Andrew's g-pectin isn't really designed to do the sort of pdf you're aiming for. It's a special blend he created to make pdf to be paired with chocolate and then enrobed. Hence its softness. You want to look for "apple pectin." Most of the pectin in the canning section at the markets won't work well for pdf. And stay away from citrus pectin. Try this link to L'Epicerie for small quantities of the right stuff: http://www.lepicerie.com/customer/product....02&cat=0&page=1 They also have glucose and citric acid (we tend to use fresh lemon juice instead). You can probably substitute corn syrup for the glucose if you want. Good luck and keep us posted. Cheers, Steve ← I figured the g-pectin wasn't quite right, but it's what I had, so I thought it was worth trying. Unfortunately, I don't have time to order anything special. Kerry says upthread that canning section pectin should work, although I've been assuming that I should avoid the "no added sugar needed" varieties and look for the real thing. Unfortunately, today all I could find was liquid pectin and the no sugar kind - I'll go to another store tomorrow and see if I have better luck.

Tammy the info on the Boiron web site gives 15g of citric acid to 1 litre of fruit puree for peach pate de friut and you add the citric acid right at the end. I have not made this so no experience but they have a good pdf file you can download of proportions for lots of different fruits. www.boironfreres.com ← But they add that right at the end for all the recipes - I think it's part of the chemistry of the formula. I'd like to add extra for flavor purposes.

I'm planning to make some peach pate de fruit. I've done a little experimentation but want to make a big batch this weekend, so I'm hoping for a little feedback to help me get them right! For my experiments, I used the g-pectin, because that's what I had on hand, but I'm planning on picking up some regular pectin. I saw upthread that I should be able to find what I need with the canning supplies - is there a particular brand I should be looking for? I found that the texture of my test batch was much softer than I wanted (although I had no problem with weeping). I want there to be a bit of toothsome-ness too it. What's the ideal PdF texture? I'm guessing that using regular pectin will help, as I seem to recall that the g pectin is designed to produce a particularly soft PdF. Kerry - you mention that a 1/2 batch of the Boiron fits in 10x10 caramel bars. What height of bar/finished product does that produce? Lastly, I'm making a peach PdF and it's really quite sweet. I think upthread there was a suggestion to add some citric acid to punch up the acidity a little - when would I add that, and what's a good amount to start with for a half batch? Thanks!

I made my first batch of pate de fruit using the Boiron recipes last night. It says to let stand for 48 hours, then cut, coat in sugar and let stand 48 more. Is that timing right? And what does it do - is there an associated textural change?

I used to work exclusively with the Guittard 72 for tempering. It's actually quite a fluid chocolate, so I can't imagine that you'd want/need to add additional cocoa butter for regular use. I found it to be quite an easy chocolate to work with. I think your problem was from trying to do a direct temper in the melter. As tempting as it sounds, i've never had much luck with that at all, and do what the others describe - turn the melter up to high for a few hours to melt, then seed with tempered chocolate. And I always test for temper before working, because the temperatures can be right and temper can still be off, sadly. I'm much better at it than I was, but tempering chocolate is still the bane of my existence.

You're probably referring to Eastern Michigan University, in Ypsilanti (pronounced ip-sih-LAN-tee). Unfortunately, I'm not terribly familiar with Ypsi (IP-see) restaurants. Near campus there's an ostensibly good Chinese/Vietnamese place, Golden Wall, plus a well received Vietnamese restaurant, Dalat. As Randi mentioned, there are numerous good choices in Ann Arbor, but one needs to drive there from EMU. ← La Fiesta Mexicana is a good Mexican restaurant that's almost right across from EMU on Cross St. And there are a couple other Mexican restaurants in that block, all of which I recall hearing good things about. "Temptations" is a reasonably short drive down Washtenaw towards Ann Arbor (but still well on the Ypsi side of things). Good Indian food. Abe's Coney Island is in downtown Ypsi on Michigan Ave - good diner food. I also like the The Wolverine - it's even more dinery, and also on Michigan Ave. Going the opposite way from Abe's there's a place called The Bomber, another diner, known for breakfast. The Depot Town part of Ypsi has some nicer restaurants. The Sidetrack is a little bar-like, but kids are allowed (i've taken my 4-year old there) and they make great burgers. I've never tried the deep fried dill pickles, but they get talked about a lot... That's my Ypsi overview, off the top of my head. I second Alex's recommendation of Dalat - I ate many many lunches there when i worked right next door.

Of course there's still room for more cooks and helpers, but one thing you don't see on the list above is that there are lots of people who've volunteered to help with cleanup and set-up - they're not in the list I'm posting, but it's a selection you can make when you buy your ticket. As a cook who hates to clean, I appreciate those people a lot! I think we'll find that most everyone will be participating in one way or another in the creation of the feast, don't worry.